hello tweets.

i went birding yesterday afternoon at seward park. i saw several
lovely canvasback and heard a virginia rail "oinking" loudly in
the cattails, and heard (but didn't see) at least two conures
yacking in the treetops, followed by a loud squabble. the highlight
of this underwear-dampening adventure was a close-up sighting of
a female pileated woodpecker poking around on a very large old
cedar (?) tree. we watched her for about 15 minutes as she bounced
energetically up the tree trunk, and banged very loudly on the
bark. she apparently found a juicy morsel before moving on.

if the success of this trip was based only on my species count,
i would have to conclude that it was a dismal failure, since i
only got 38 species total. however, i enjoyed myself thoroughly
and was pleased that i spotted the canvasback (i really love those
elegant ducks!) that i had come specifically to see, along with
the added unexpected excitement of watching the pileated woodpecker
in action.

Deborah Wisti-Peterson email:nyneve at u.washington.edu
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
Visit me on the web: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~nyneve/
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